The Poisoned Chalice Conundrum
by Jason Layton
Summary: The answer to one of the biggest questions of series 1.  well in my eyes  Did Sherlock choose the right pill in Study in Pink. Hope you like! Jas xx


**OK so I'm hoping you've all seen the film "The Princess Bride" (1987 20th Century Fox) if you haven't you should it's very funny!**

**I've been watching it this afternoon!**

**Hope you like it, oh and the question from Lestrade comes from the pilot.**

**Jas xx**

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"I have a question Sherlock?" Lestrade asked as Sherlock attempted to reach John, standing behind the police tape. " Did you choose the right pill?"

That question haunted Sherlock, he was convinced he had the correct answer, but he was terrified he was wrong. Not because of a fear of his own mortality, but because of a fear of his own fallibility. Sherlock Holmes is an intellectual snob, like all the Holmes men he hates the idea that people might be smarter than he might. He hates the idea that the cabby may have duped him, twice. The cab he had been wrong about, he hadn't spotted what was in front of his eyes, but then he sometimes made mistakes, and he always learned from them. The pill however dug at him cut him to the quick. He didn't know if he'd made a mistake, he couldn't learn from it. He was distracted by it, it made his quiet moments worse than usual, when denied the correct stimulus his brain reverted to the problem.

He had asked for the pills from Scotland Yard but they refused to hand over evidence, he had studied the case over and over, everything about the victims searching for a loophole in the case. John would never know but he had spent hours experimenting with the collagulation of saliva trying to work out how long the poison took to disolve inside the victims mouth. However all this was distracting his brain from that nasty niggling voice, of the cabbie.

"Oh interesting, are you sure?"

Sherlock was lying in hospital just after the pool incident when it finally struck him. In his boredom he had decided to watch the TV, flicking channels he had come across a 1980's childrens film called The Princess Bride. Towards the end he suddenly had his answer in bright yellow technicolour, and so amazed with his answer he jumped out of his bed and found John.

"I have the answer, I know the answer!" he shook and shouted at his friend!

"To what Sherlock? What's going on?"

"The pill, I understand about the cabbies pill!" he yelled

"That was weeks ago Sherlock, are you OK?" John sat up in bed worried.

"It's brilliant, arrgh it's brilliant. They were both poisoned!" he leapt up and ran out of the room.

The scene was still playing out on the screen and Sherlock watched rapt, as Dread Pirate Roberts explains the answer to the conundrum that had kept the worlds only consulting detective up for weeks.

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_**Roberts:**__ All right. Where is the poison? The battle of wits has begun. It ends when you decide and we both drink, and find out who is right... and who is dead.  
__Vizzini__: But it's so simple. All I have to do is divine from what I know of you: are you the sort of man who would put the poison into his own goblet or his enemy's? Now, a clever man would put the poison into his own goblet, because he would know that only a great fool would reach for what he was given. I am not a great fool, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you. But you must have known I was not a great fool, you would have counted on it, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me.  
__**Roberts:**__ You've made your decision then?  
__Vizzini__: Not remotely. Because iocane comes from Australia, as everyone knows, and Australia is entirely peopled with criminals, and criminals are used to having people not trust them, as you are not trusted by me, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you.  
__**Roberts:**__ Truly, you have a dizzying intellect.  
__Vizzini__: Wait til I get going! Now, where was I?  
__**Roberts:**__ Australia.  
__Vizzini__: Yes, Australia. And you must have suspected I would have known the powder's origin, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me.  
__**Roberts:**__ You're just stalling now.  
__Vizzini__: You'd like to think that, wouldn't you? You've beaten my giant, which means you're exceptionally strong, so you could've put the poison in your own goblet, trusting on your strength to save you, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you. But, you've also bested my Spaniard, which means you must have studied, and in studying you must have learned that man is mortal, so you would have put the poison as far from yourself as possible, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me.  
__**Roberts:**__ You're trying to trick me into giving away something. It won't work.  
__Vizzini__: IT HAS WORKED! YOU'VE GIVEN EVERYTHING AWAY! I KNOW WHERE THE POISON IS!  
__**Roberts**__: Then make your choice.  
__Vizzini__: I will, and I choose - What in the world can that be?  
__Vizzini__: [Vizzini gestures up and away from the table. Roberts looks. Vizzini swaps the goblets]  
__**Roberts:**__ What? Where? I don't see anything.  
__Vizzini__: Well, I- I could have sworn I saw something. No , let's drink. Me from my glass, and you from yours.  
__Roberts__, __Vizzini__: [Vizzini and the Man in Black drink ]  
__**Roberts:**__ You guessed wrong.  
__Vizzini__: You only think I guessed wrong! That's what's so funny! I switched glasses when your back was turned! Ha ha! You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders - The most famous of which is "never get involved in a land war in Asia" - but only slightly less well-known is this: "Never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line"! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha...  
__Vizzini__: [Vizzini stops suddenly,his smile frozen on his face and falls to the right out of camera dead]  
__Buttercup__: And to think, all that time it was your cup that was poisoned.  
__**Roberts:**__ They were both poisoned. I spent the last few years building up an immunity to iocane powder.  
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**Hope you liked it!**

**Jas xx**


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